![]() ![]() For instance, you might have a four voice piece with parts labelled Cantus, Altus, Tenor and Bassus. As a result composers tended to use a more general naming procedure. For instance a Renaissance canzon could be played by a variety of different consorts - viols, recorders, cornetts and sackbuts or even a mixture of these. Previously this was a more flexible concept. This is because most music from the Baroque period onwards was composed with a specific instrumentation in mind. These days the voices in a piece of recorder music are generally labelled with instrument names – for instance tenor recorder, great bass recorder etc. Instead I’ll limit the scope to modern editions of the sort offered by publishing houses like London Pro Musica and many others. If I were to cover that here too though we’d be looking at an article of epic proportions. Learning to play from facsimiles of old manuscripts can be fascinating, as it reveals the sort of notation Renaissance composers would have been familiar with. If I mention the names Gabrieli, Palestrina, Lassus, Tallis and Byrd I’m sure you’ll all be nodding in recognition, having played music by at least one of them.įor the purposes of this blog post I’ll help you understand the notation in modern editions of Renaissance music. There were composers at either end of the Renaissance who were either still composing old fashioned music, which owed more to the medieval period, or forward thinkers, leaning towards the Baroque style before it became mainstream. The transition between musical styles is never an overnight change, but a gradual shift. What is Renaissance music?įundamentally, it’s music composed between roughly 14. When you’ve finished reading, why not dig out another piece from the period and see which of them you find there? To illustrate the subject, my examples come from the Victoria Motet I recorded and shared a few weeks ago, but all of the topics here are applicable to other pieces of Renaissance music. If even just one of the things I cover here brings you an ‘aha’ moment, it will have been worth it! Today’s blog post is my attempt to help you fill in some of these blanks in your knowledge. ![]() I’m as guilty as any teacher of sometimes assuming a level of knowledge among those I work with, forgetting to mention details which seem obvious to me. The irony is, other people in the room will almost certainly also be thinking, “I wonder what X, Y or Z means” but will also be too afraid to ask the question!Ī recent conversation with an adult pupil made me think about all the little pieces of information which are handy to know when tackling Renaissance music. Whereas children have no fear of asking questions, adults will often hold back for fear of looking foolish, even if this might help fill some gaps in their understanding. Over the years they’ve picked up snippets of useful information about the music they play, but this knowledge is often peppered with holes. Through my work with adult recorder players I encounter amateur musicians from all walks of life, many of whom are very knowledgeable about a myriad of subjects. Equally, it’s all too easy to remain unaware of the things you don’t yet know! Once you learn about a subject you forget there was a time when you lacked this knowledge. ![]()
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